LANSING — There are 946,592 registered watercraft in Michigan. That’s 36,639 more than 10 years ago.

With an increase in boats comes an increased demand for ways of getting them in the water, and many boaters across the state get access to lakes and streams from road ends, sections of road where the right of way leads to the shore.

Court rulings say that road ends may be used only for putting boats in the water and pulling them out, but a recent proposal in the House could change that. If passed, the bill would allow local governments to apply for permits from the Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) to build seasonal, public-use marinas at road ends.

Rep. Matt Gillard, D-Alpena, is the chief sponsor. Other sponsors include Joel Sheltrown, D-West Branch, Barbara Farrah, D-Southgate, and Glenn Steil Jr., R-Grand Rapids.

But David Bertram, legislative liaison for the Michigan Townships Association, said the language of the bill is too precise.

“It goes through how the docks should be set up,” he said. “It’s very prescriptive as to how local units of government should do it.

“Why can’t they just leave it up to the local government to decide how they want to do it?”

Bertram said building such marinas could also involve municipal governments in legal battles over lake access between property owners with lakefront or riparian rights and those who live near the lakes but don’t own frontage — so called “backlotters.”

“Especially when it’s local taxes as resources, you have to be careful how you get into those cases,” he said.

Higgins Lake in Roscommon County has been the focus of much of the debate between waterfront owners and backlotters. 

Marvin Bolton of the Higgins Lakefront Property Owners’ Association said backlotters have traditionally installed hoists at road ends around the lake on a first come, first served basis.

“So I don’t see it so much as a conflict between riparians and backlotters as between the general public — those who want to use these road ends — and those people that tend to take them over for their own private use,” he said.

Bolton suggested people without lakefront access rights should use private facilities for their boats.

“It may not be free, but most people shouldn’t expect to have a free resource given to them just because they happen to get there first with their boat hoist,” he said.

Bertram said the Higgins Lake road end fallout isn’t just legal — it’s political too, as the governments in Gerrish and Lyon townships have seen.

“We’ve had township officials recalled up there because they didn’t get involved enough or because they were involved too much in the lake and access points,” he said.

A marina requires two permits from DEQ, one for construction, the other for operation. Joe Haas of DEQ said the marina bill could lead to “an enforcement nightmare” for the state.

“We don’t have any full-time staff in our marina program,” he said. “The people who are administering and reviewing marina permits are doing it as only part of their job. It’s going to be very difficult if this gets pushed through.”